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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#291

Post by kristopolous »

dredmorbius wrote: post #254
kristopolous wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I web searched and Google told me 10TB so I went with that. I think we're still within the information revolution and to put it into perspective let's look at the textile revolution. Clothes used to be expensive. Someone maybe owned 1 or 2 sets, often passed down from their parents. You could easily illustrate your wealth by wearing many layers of fine material. Simply owning many clothes was sufficient…

Clothes always had a social signalling component. The signalling dynamic shifted, becoming both increasingly accessible, capable of defining increasingly finer social groups, esspecially those not associated with high-powwer or high-status groups (nobility, royalty, clergy, miltitary, artisans, merchants). Fads-as-signalling shows up in many places if you look for it: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/62u…

> What does it mean to publish if what's recorded is never read? The old WORN drive joke (write once, read never) has fangs.

The mere act of publishing itself is a form of capital and political and social exercise regardless of who reads it.

This is a deep rabbit hole and I don't have time to go into here (there's 2 chapters in this mythical book I speak of on it) but I'll point you in two directions, both centered on xerox

1. As a brief premiere look up the scholarly work 'Xerox Project: Photocopy Machines as a Metaphor for an “Open Society”' - or look into how the open society foundation supposedly helped defeat apartheid south africa and bring down the soviets via copy machines and cottage publications.

2. As a cornerstone of the first step of the modern LGBT rights movement in the 1950s. "ONE magazine", one of the first LGBT magazines using a specific Xerox machine as best I can determine either in Mar Vista or Venice california. Shortly there after, the Mattachine society, a second LGBT rights group, used the same copy machine to do their publication as well. The machine was also used to fight anti-mccarthyist blacklisting publications for the film industry as well. A similar effort happened for civil rights in Jim Crow south (I live in LA so I can do better research on the LGBT stuff since I can drive to the physical archives)

Even if nobody ever read any of these and the publications went into the garbage can, the maturation of thought and the coalition building as a function of the geographic space necessitated by the access to the machines had meaningful political ramifications.

You can also read the book 'Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture' for a decent deep dive on this.

It's all fascinating stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#292

Post by paulie_a »

drampelt wrote: post #259
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103

If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to l…

Does anyone have any tips or resources for getting more out of the Jetbrains IDEs? I've been using them for years but I still feel like there's so much I'm not taking advantage of.

My personal favorite is "find usages". You can destroy dead code which makes life a bit better in a large codebase. The pretty basic auto refactor is also nice

It seems like there are just a lot of those small things you get used to that are really nice

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#293

Post by equality_1138 »

locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

Seconded. In particular, I've come to recognize the growing confluence of woke politics and tech management as major impediment on my ability to do my job well. Reading up on career coaching and psychology has certainly helped, but can also serve to overcomplicate the situation. My therapist provides highly personal and much more practical guidance in accepting the bs.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#294

Post by david_shaw »

The best money I've spent on professional development is paying to travel to industry conferences at which I was accepted to speak.

Like many people, I was nervous about public speaking earlier in my career. Out of a desire to improve myself and to "give back" to the community, I applied to speak at some industry conferences. Many people think about conferences as TED-talk style luxury events, at which speakers are compensated for their time and expertise. In reality, the only thing most conferences give speakers are a few free tickets to the conference and access to speaker-only events. Travel (and often lodging) need to be bought out-of-pocket.

By putting myself out of my comfort zone and speaking at these conferences, I developed valuable skills that significantly helped my career as it continued to develop. Being able to speak confidently in stressful situations -- to a wide variety of audiences -- is a very valuable skill to have.

In addition to the confidence boost of getting some talks under my belt -- and the actual skill of public speaking -- the networking opportunities afforded to conference speakers are often unmatched. I was able to have intimate conversations with leaders in my field (information security), and learn first-hand how luminaries think about contemporary challenges.

I realize this answer probably doesn't conform to the type of response that OP was seeking, but it's the truth of my experience.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#295

Post by bingerman »

atlgator wrote: post #192
nolok wrote: post #26

I found that (for me !) it was less useful to invest in learning to do new things, as opposed to investing in being more efficient and / or having my work time more pleasant. Make your work feel like pleasure and there is no limit to what you can achieve. So maybe don't only think "what can I be better at ?" but also "how can my life be better while I work ?". Software: A proper training session with a high level deb…

I love my Bose QC 35! The problem lately is I can't find any current music that is appealing to me. Alas, I must be getting old.

What do you mean by current music? I have absolutely no idea what kind of garbage is pushed on teenagers these days but a lot of new music is produced.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#296

Post by throwawaymanbot »

equality_1138 wrote: post #293
locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

Seconded. In particular, I've come to recognize the growing confluence of woke politics and tech management as major impediment on my ability to do my job well. Reading up on career coaching and psychology has certainly helped, but can also serve to overcomplicate the situation. My therapist provides highly personal and much more practical guidance in accepting the bs.

Even using the term "Woke Politics" is a giveaway.. I Hope your therapist helps you.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#297

Post by wimagguc »

simmons wrote: post #238

This may not be a useful answer for you depending on your situation, but the best money I've spent on professional development has been funding sabbaticals between gigs where I engage in deep study on topics that are harder to learn in small doses.

This is a useful answer, especially because I don't think most people consider or make this decision mindfully. Sabbaticals can be an important option not only to advance your professional development but also to avoid burnout.

And I always hear people who consider it, but nine times out of ten (or probably more), they drop the idea for a copout reason (I met someone / need to save money for X / this job is too great to leave)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#298

Post by gadders »

snarkypixel wrote: post #71
ThePhysicist wrote: post #58

I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'd say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, s…

Adding to that, even if you don't like negotiating, it's helpful to understand the tactics used by the other person so you can counter them (or at least be aware of it). For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." Another popular negotiation tactic is to get aske…

>>For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it."

In the UK, some sleazy sellers of things like double glazing won't even start discussing the sale unless both husband and wife are present to prevent this tactic.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#299

Post by vishnugupta »

orzig wrote: post #157
nolok wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely understand, which is also why I waited way too long to buy them. Which one do you doubt and what are your questions ? I would be happy to provide more about my experience so you can decide if it matches your need.

Thanks a million! IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training? I have been really trying to get better at emacs, for example, but it still feels clunky a lot of the time so I only use it for org-mode. I also switched to VS Code and honestly don't see what the hype is about - but does that mean I just need more training? From who? ("If brute force isn't working, use more o…

I could add from my experience.

> IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training?

I had put off using a paid IDE for years. However the recommendation for IDEA tools kept growing stronger among my network. So I just took the plunge with their JetBrains (for Java). And what worked for me was I was full on using their IDE. Including running the app/web-server from within IDE. The great thing is they have 30 day trial period and so I learned most of the right way of using it. i.e., keyboard short cuts, navigation etc., Towards the end of the trial period I could sense a clear increase in my productivity. From then on buying full version was easy decision.

With their DataGrip product it was something similar. Good thing is their trial version allows 30 minute sessions. I kept on using it for a month or so until I was annoyed with repeated restarts so bought their full suite of products (the difference between two tools and full suite is something like ~10$/month).

> Laptop. MacBook's keyboard + Trackpad has been a game changer for me. Especially the trackpad. It's incredibly easy for me to navigate using trackpad. From exclusively Linux for ~12 years I've gone full on Apple ecosystem over last 3 years. Now not just Laptop I can also vouch for their bluetooth keyboard, trackpad and iPhone-11, and AirPods Pro.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#300

Post by pc86 »

locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

OP said they have a professional development budget, so it's presumably from an employer. Cute non-answer notwithstanding, I don't think their employer is going to allocate professional development resources for therapy.
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